26 Mar 2012

CNMI soup kitchen clients expected to grow

11:49 am on 26 March 2012

The Salvation Army in the Northern Marianas thinks a surge in clients at its soup kitchen in Saipan will continue.

Called Guma Yo' Ase' or the House of Mercy, the soup kitchen was started in May last year with 28 clients.

But the Salvation Army's ministry leader, Wayne Gillespie, says since then there has been explosive growth with a seven fold increase.

He says it is probably a combination of more people struggling to get enough food and word of the service getting around.

Mr Gillespie says the feedback from clients is that they're either out of work or have had their hours of employment cut back.

He says they think demand at the soup kitchen will continue to grow.

"We predict that we probably will because the economy is certainly not improving, not only here but very few other places are the economies improving. So we think it will get worse, a lot worse."